Comments Please!

[J.P.M.]

Lol...The only thing I've learned is... having employed a registered local architect (obligatory) who produced a project which can be weighed in kilos (many lbs in American) and employed a registered local builder (obligatory) to do the work and having got a nature reserve permit (obligatory, criminal offence without one in a Zona Protegida Natural) to carry out the works and not being able to touch or comment on anything ...that it is my fault when it all goes tits up. I wouldn't mind, but I'm qualified and experienced in designing and constructing buildings and can spot a lemon a mile off. Oh, I'm also a qualified and experienced Solutions Architect in case anyone thinks I'm changing my story.

Yesterday, I got a permit to rebuild my house (I had to buy a Catalan legal address to get a Certificat de Empadronament, which is another long story) which is in Zona Protegida Cultural. This is because the building next door got knocked together in 1365, which is about 130 years before Columbus found America, and is therefore seemingly important.

The moral of this sorry tale is never let your girlfirend near the internet if she has a large amount of cash and a desire to spend it. The result being, the boyfriend spends 3.5 years in a tent sorting out the mess created.

Back on topic: Still waitng on a permit to stick those solar panels I bought to my shed though!

Sounds a bit like a case of you reaping the benefits of most everyone's tendency toward anarchy and irresponsible self interest and gov. attempt at reigning that in for the common good. From your earlier recounting of what reads like a ready-shoot-aim approach to PV and (NOMB) life, it looks, to me only perhaps, you may need some protection from those tendencies. As for bureaucracy, welcome to a pluralistic society. If I live in a museum, I probably don't expect I'll be able to remodel at my whim.

[Robinhood-46]

nomadros,
I would have thought that your 40 amp MPPT controller would have no problems to cope with your 800 watts of panels. Connect two pairs of two for 24 volts;
800 watts / 12 = 66.67 amps = too much
800 watts / 24 = 33.33 amps = not too much
The controller will convert the 24v into 12v to charge the battery bank It will also jump up the amps;.
Example, readings on my charge controller 40 amp MPPT.

Panel output _______________ battery

volts = 40.2 v _______________14.6 volts
current = 3.8________________ amps 8.9 amps
power = 151.1 watts

the panels power is permenantly fluctuating, so by the time I scroll through controller parameters to find battery, the panel output will have changed therefore these figures are not representative of the controllers efficiency. I have given them just to help you understand how your controller works when you connect it on 24 v with the panels that you have allready bought.
Normally when/ IF the panels give the 800 watts, your controller is more than capable of accepting at 24 volts. However, after conversion to 12v for charging the battery you will be well over the 40 amps max of the controller. You must check to see how your controller copes with this scenario. My controller charges the battery bank at 40 amps and the rest is wasted electricity. Although the manuel states that this is ok I do try to avoid it. I'm sure that somebody here will be able to clarify if there is a risk of premature wear or not?
In real life situation the charge voltage will be 13.6 to 14.8 volts when panels on full power so max amps are acyually 800 / 13.6 = 58.8 and not 66.67
The maximum panel wattage is 1.5 times the rated panel wattage therefore 780 watts at 12v and 1,560 at 24.
You will be able to check these ratings on the internet if you do not have a manuel for your model of controller.
Good luck with your installation, you will be able to watch the telly in your castle and be a very happy man just don't count on doing it every day.
The most important thing when going of grid when small scale is to understand the difference between what you need and what you want. When your needs are reel needs they can easily be supplied. When the state of charge (SOC) of your battery bank allows you to have some wants thats when you can spend hours on the computer or infront of the telly, electric toaster/kettle instead of the gas,hifi system and power tools.

[nomadros]

nomadros,
I would have thought that your 40 amp MPPT controller would have no problems to cope with your 800 watts of panels. Connect two pairs of two for 24 volts;
800 watts / 12 = 66.67 amps = too much
800 watts / 24 = 33.33 amps = not too much
The controller will convert the 24v into 12v to charge the battery bank It will also jump up the amps;.
Example, readings on my charge controller 40 amp MPPT.

snip.

Many thanks for the info RH-46. I'm going to really read and take on board those calcs. My GF flies in on Saturday to help with the mounting structure (4m long, hung off a random rubble wall so is a bit difficult for 1 person to align everything), so hopefully by Monday we'll be in a position to start connecting stuff. My current "system" is 18cm x 12cm panel and an LED security light so anything bigger is an "up". If I can get a few hours a day work done on a laptop when it's dark, I'll be happy. The TV is more for the weather forecast and learning Spanish and Catala. I'll also be using a mobile repeater to connect to the internet and for comms so I can get alarms from the weather app I use and alerts from the forest rangers and fire brigade. The "castle" is a traditional Catalan design whose materials and shape are the result of a collaboration between the local council, the architect, the forest rangers, the fire dept and the dept of agriculture. I had no say in it, I just wanted 4 walls and a roof. Anyway, again many thanks, which is truly appreciated.

[nomadros]

If I live in a museum, I probably don't expect I'll be able to remodel at my whim.

Forgetting the fact that the land and house got museum-ed without any notification, the hard part is getting everyone to recognise I now live in museums and getting assorted groups of pencil pushers to look outside their individual mental silos. Anyway for the land, I've now got excellent and professional relationships with all "stakeholders" and what I want is actually about 95% the same as what they want, I don't get "inspected" every 3 months now, everyone that needs keys has keys and my clearing the land (with permit) now ties in with the fire plan clear zone, so if anyone gets trapped by snow or fire they can be helicoptered out. For the house, I've still got problems, funnily enough mostly to do with solar panels. 2 years ago: illegal, this year: mandatory. Next year, they'll probaly be illegal again when someone realises that they didn't have solar panels in the 14th century.

[Robinhood-46]

I should think that your allright for a few years. If someone does point out that they don't think there were solar panels in the 14th century,it will take years of pen pushing and research to estabish if its true or not.

[J.P.M.]

Forgetting the fact that the land and house got museum-ed without any notification, the hard part is getting everyone to recognise I now live in museums and getting assorted groups of pencil pushers to look outside their individual mental silos. Anyway for the land, I've now got excellent and professional relationships with all "stakeholders" and what I want is actually about 95% the same as what they want, I don't get "inspected" every 3 months now, everyone that needs keys has keys and my clearing the land (with permit) now ties in with the fire plan clear zone, so if anyone gets trapped by snow or fire they can be helicoptered out. For the house, I've still got problems, funnily enough mostly to do with solar panels. 2 years ago: illegal, this year: mandatory. Next year, they'll probaly be illegal again when someone realises that they didn't have solar panels in the 14th century.

Such are some of the woes when anarchy runs into the realities rightly or wrongly but in any case usually imposed by a pluralistic society.

Would you trade more freedom for not getting flown out in an emergency ? How do all those emergency services get financed ? Pretty expensive I bet. Just wonderin'.

Maybe emergency egress capability will be discontinued when it's discovered helicopters weren't around in the 14th century.

[nomadros]

[QUOTE=J.P.M.;n386931]

Would you trade more freedom for not getting flown out in an emergency ? How do all those emergency services get financed ? Pretty expensive I bet. Just wonderin'.
QUOTE]
They can leave me, I can take care of myself...it's everyone else (rangers, fire people etc) that need extracted. They use helicopters for everything around here due to the terrain. Last forest fire, I sat, had a whisky or 10 and a ciggie or 10 and watched the fire planes come in for their bombing runs. They were so near the ground, I could hear the cockpit radios as the went passed. I'm learning what mushrooms are edible this week. I've got about 50 different types and no clue about any of them. Tasty!

[littleharbor]

.
QUOTE]
They can leave me, I can take care of myself...it's everyone else (rangers, fire people etc) that need extracted.


Anybody here remember a guy named Harry Truman who lived near Mt. St. Helens?

[SunEagle]

.
QUOTE]
They can leave me, I can take care of myself...it's everyone else (rangers, fire people etc) that need extracted.


Anybody here remember a guy named Harry Truman who lived near Mt. St. Helens?

I think that is called death by nature.

[J.P.M.]

.
QUOTE]
They can leave me, I can take care of myself...it's everyone else (rangers, fire people etc) that need extracted.


Anybody here remember a guy named Harry Truman who lived near Mt. St. Helens?

Yea, and all the resources and jeopardy spent and exposed in the search effort.

I'm very sympathetic to those who, in effect, say "don't worry about me", but less so for those types who fail to make their wishes clear to first responders/rescuers. Seems arrogant and inconsiderate.

[nomadros]

Yea, and all the resources and jeopardy spent and exposed in the search effort.

I'm very sympathetic to those who, in effect, say "don't worry about me", but less so for those types who fail to make their wishes clear to first responders/rescuers. Seems arrogant and inconsiderate.

Look peeps....everybody knows me around here and at first I got inspected nine ways to hell because foreigners do daft things and are generally stupid. Everything I do in the nature reserve is officially sanctioned (otherwise jail) and I've built up a reputation as "authentic" with means I'm not an idiot and do things properly and mostly by hand (usually a requirement of any permit I get). I've had the police, fire, rangers and once the jehovah's witnessess even tramped through the woods to try to convert me! I would never put anyone at risk and am now sort of an unofficial eyes and ears in the woods giving reports to the hunters on boar, deer and mountain goat locations, telling the rangers if any "unusual" stuff happens and generally keeping an eye out for smoke and strangers. I even (somehow) managed to get the WRC and the local council together so if you ever watch the Rally de Catalunya (or Rally de Espanya depending on your politics) on tele, the finish and podium of the Pratdip stage is the start of my patch.

Anyway, back on topic, my application to mount 4 panels on my shed has hit the buffers and I've had to produce huge documentation to justify sticking the things on a wall and will probably have to wait another 4-5 months to get a permit. In the meantime, I've mounted 2 panels (thanks to sunking for the info on my minimum panels needs) on one of my tipping trailers and if anyone moans, I'll just tow the things out.

Remember last week I was learning mushrooms, well I'm now flying solo on that knowledge and man are they tasty (and very expensive if you buy them in the shops).

bolet1.jpegbolet2.jpegbolet3.jpeg

Of my "things that will kill you" list, I think I've only got tractor tipping, earthquake and zombie apocalypse left to try out.

[littleharbor]

Of my "things that will kill you" list, I think I've only got tractor tipping, earthquake and zombie apocalypse left to try out.

They say, "One way to tell which mushrooms are deadly is, they are found in the stomachs of dead people".

[Mike90250]

All mushrooms are edible, once.

[Paul Land]

Thanks.... .

I've just sized everything up and I'm only using around 500w max (without compressor), so adding 25% would give me 625w inverter, however once you have something you tend to use it and I can see me charging and using tools. If I settled on an inverter around 1000w could the batteries cope ok with that? I'm wary of small inverters because I've a 300w 12v one in my truck and it craps out when I try to charge various tools.

Just been on a crash course of all this...
so....
panels (4 x 270W talesun polycrystalline at 60 cells per panel as speced above)
batteries (2 x Ultracel 230-12 as speced above @ c10 200ah in series)
charge regulator 24v 30A PWM Must
inverter 24V 800VA Victron Phoenix

SunKing...am I getting better or worse?

Start At A then go to Z Purchase 1Copy: Photovoltaic Systems James P Dunlope The book is partnered with NJATC It's Textbook used in PV Lab/Classrooms comes with Cd Rom. It with hands on approach will get you there hit or miss. Sell stuff that does not work for you on e-bay,except batts to $$$ to ship.

[nomadros]

They say, "One way to tell which mushrooms are deadly is, they are found in the stomachs of dead people".

and....

All mushrooms are edible, once.


Thanks for the advice, I'll look out for dead people.

I cooked a boar leg in a fire pit for 18 hours, fried up some mushrooms and mmmmmm. I'm thinking passion fruit or pomegranate jus and some honey with crushed hazelnuts and walnuts the next time. This picking stuff up (except the boar) and eating it business is great. The boar was subject to a large caliber round and I hope it's the bad tempered ****** that I had a 4 metre face off with at 04:30 one morning when I was armed with a piece of wood, a steely eye and quite damp underpants..


Paul L, thanks for the info, I'll look it up. They have it on amazon and there appears to be many download sites that appear to be a bit iffy.My next panel project is a biggy so I'll be doing it properly (subject to getting a permit to build the building and a further permit for the panels)